


Nothing Compares to the Sun On Your Skin or the Life In Your Eyes

by ThereIsNoTragedyInThat



Series: A Thousand Futures of Me and You [210]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst with a Happy Ending, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, OT3, Sunlight, What Have I Done, stephen centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-22 22:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat/pseuds/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat
Summary: Stephen just wanted to feel the sun on his skin again.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Stephen Strange, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Series: A Thousand Futures of Me and You [210]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1118655
Comments: 12
Kudos: 87





	Nothing Compares to the Sun On Your Skin or the Life In Your Eyes

Stephen stood, unmoving behind the newly installed windows of Tony’s penthouse. Expensive and innovative, they allowed for an accurate view of the world outside without the tinted colours or blurriness, and most importantly; absolutely no UV rays would slip past. They had made sure of it through painstaking tests and studies.

If Stephen could cry it would have brought a tear to his eye, to see the world after all these months, brightened with the sun and without the fear of it burning the skin from his bones. Yet, for all his appreciation of Tony and Pepper’s work…it wasn’t enough.

He felt the restriction like a caged animal. The knowledge that he needed to stay apart until nightfall had clawed at his considerable self-control, the late-night streets so different from the day. Stephen had been introvert once he became a sorcerer, so focused on his studies and duties that it hardly even crossed his mind that there was a world out there…he got to see so many others after all.

But Pepper and Tony had changed that. They had brought him back into the world with dates, walks, and galas. Stephen had been surprised by how much he missed it and anguished that such simple things had been stolen away through one wrong move, one wrong dimension, one wrong person.

Stephen took a steadying breath. It turned out that breathing was a difficult habit to break and besides, the subtle movement of his chest put everyone more at ease, even Wong who had adjusted remarkably well to Stephen’s condition thus far.

Focus. He really needed to focus.

Glancing down, Stephen inspected the ring on his finger. Subtle, a simple golden ban with carefully etched runes on the inside, was all that stood between him and the freedom he craved so desperately. Unbelievably, even with the change, Stephen’s hands still trembled, an injury that even death couldn’t fix apparently. Turned out seeing them like that…vulnerable and scarred, was comforting.

The sun was just beginning to rise, weaving its way through tall building and rising higher and higher above, relentless in its pursuit of a new day. Stephen couldn’t help the smile that stretched wide across his lips.

In the bedroom, only twenty feet away, Tony and Pepper slept, oblivious to Stephen’s plans. It wasn’t really fair, and he knew that…but this was something he needed to do alone, just in case Wong’s reservations were correct and the ring would do nothing more than fall from his crumbling finger. The ring, a final ditch effort to save Stephen’s sanity was created with the help of no less than thirteen sorcerers, including himself and Wong.

Wong hadn’t wanted him to do it.

Pepper and Tony would have tried to stop him.

Reaching out, Stephen slowly wrapped his long fingers around the handle of the door. The balcony already awash with sunlight taunted him. He didn’t want to die, would do almost anything to keep his lovers from suffering through his death, but he couldn’t live like this. If he must be a monster, he wanted to at least see the sun, to be reminded of a world that was good and bright and happy. Maybe that was unrealistic. Maybe Stephen just didn’t care anymore.

He tugged the door open, breath rattling through his empty chest abruptly, as he stepped out and into the sunlight, eyes wide open as he tried to take it all in one last time. Stephen’s mouth opened, bare chest open to the light, pajama pants hanging low on his hips. Several long moments passed as Stephen waited for the flames and burning and pain…

Except it didn’t happen.

Stephen stared at the sky and the sun, emotion welling in his chest, as he breathed deeply. Something helpless and desperate climbed up his throat, coming out in an exhilarated cry, voice loud in his ears despite the early morning noise of New York. The sounds that streamed from his lips were a mix of sobs and laughter, mind frantic in its attempts to understand what was happening.

Stephen hadn’t expected to survive.

He felt…warm. For the first time since he died Stephen could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin, the tingling on his body, could feel the fresh air on his tongue, so much richer in the daytime than at night. He laughed louder, threw his head back as something finally clicked into place, the melancholy finally turning the bend onto a lighter road.

His joy was only broken by the sudden, horrified cry from behind him.

Turning to look, Stephen found Pepper’s eyes wide and terrified as she leapt forward, hands trying to tug him back into the safety of the penthouse. Tears were in her eyes, even as Stephen tried to reassure her but she had only just woken, and fear played with her mind.

“I’m ok. I’m alright. Look at me.”

“Stephen,” Pepper gasped, hands wrapped around his forearm, eyes glistening. “Come inside. Please. Just come inside.”

Before he could try again, yet another, no less shocked voice joined the fray. Tony had come running from the bedroom, hand hovering anxiously over the housing unit for his suit only to take in the sight of Stephen, exposed to the sun and Pepper’s pleas to come back inside.

“Stephen?” Disbelief.

“I’m ok,” he tried again. This time, Stephen gripped Pepper’s face in his palms, forced her to look him in the eyes, offered a shaky, happy smile. “Pepper, I’m ok. The sun won’t hurt me anymore. I’m ok.”

That seemed to get through to her, to finally work. Pepper’s hands came up, running through his hair, over his chest, his arms, his face. The tears were still there, the fear too fresh to be erased by his words alone as she looked over him frantically. Then she was leaping into his arms, surprisingly strong, crushing him to her. “Stephen,” she breathed. “I thought…I thought you were trying to leave us. I thought we’d lost you again.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

He met Tony’s eyes over her shoulder. He too had ventured out onto the balcony, his own expression stormy as he took Stephen in. There was no words to ease the pain of Stephen’s first death and his return as a vampire, nothing to say that would reassure them he’d never leave again…not when only ten minutes ago he had been willing to do just that for a bit of sunlight.

Yet.

Something in his expression must have given Stephen away. His transition had been a difficult one, for all of them certainly, but Stephen hadn’t been able to bring himself to drink the blood that would keep him alive, not until he almost died. He had shied away from everyone until it got too bad and Wong had to drag him back into the world with Tony and Pepper at his side. Even then Stephen had been only half committed to life, not understanding why things couldn’t have just ended there.

It wasn’t the blessing Pepper and Tony seemed to think it was.

Except. This. This simple little thing in the form a ball in the sky made Stephen want to live and love again, to have a life with the two people he wanted to be worthy of more than anything in the world.

Tony took a shuddering breath and stepped closer, arms wrapping around them both only for a wounded sound to slide up his throat as he looked at Stephen. Pepper tilted her head into Stephen’s neck, whispered, “I know, Tony, I know. He’s warm. He’s alive.”

And for the first time since his death…Stephen felt like that was true.

**Author's Note:**

> My muse came at me brandishing a baseball bat and the words 'Vampire Stephen.' I was helpless to resist. 
> 
> Two more incoming.


End file.
